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y.-u^uun, assisting them in
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iper company boilers
Kergosien says in addition to lumber, ool and charcoal were transported to id sold in the Crescent City.
She notes the sawmill closed in 1912 hen her grandfather died. Her grand-lother died seven years later.
Most of the homes and stores of the len thriving community are gone, but 3 years of lumber mill work left the ap-roximate 50-foot high sawdust moun-ain covering several acres and the mailer wood-dust hill about 15 feet iigh covering about one-half an acre. The Bay St. Louis resident recalls
how she as a small child and her sisters would stand on top of the large pile to watch the schooners sail up the Bay of St. Louis, Jourdan River and Rotten Bayou to Fenton.
At that time the schooners could easily navigate Rotten Bayou and Bayou LeTerre which is now a shallow creek with just a few deep areas, she says.
Although strip-cutting was an acceptable and practical tree-harvesting method of the day, it contributed to considerable soil erosion which filled in many deep waterways.
Billy Pitts of the construction company says the large Fenton sawdust pile is the biggest he?s ever tackled. .
The company purchases sawdust piles throughout the Deep South and sells the material to factories, he reports.
Pitts notes International Paper Co. is utilizing the Fenton sawdust to fire its plant boilers in Moss Point and Mobile, Ala.
He estimates when the Fenton pro-. Sawdust?Page 10A
THE OLD FENTON COMMUNITY?A reproduction of a map sketched from memory by Clara Kergosien of Bay St. Louis shows the approximate location of various structures, roads and sawdust piles in the old Fenton Community in the early
1900?s. The heart of the community was located at the confluence of Rotten Bayou and Bayou LeTerre. Sawdust from the two large Kergosien Sawmill piles is now being utilized to fuel factory boilers. (Map art by Wayne Ducomb Jr.)
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fourrrofldy and besure~yoI7 have the mo^ey


Kergosien 019
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